Troops' 1-month breaks blocked

WASHINGTON — U.S. commanders in Iraq are rejecting a recommendation by Army mental health experts that troops receive a one-month break for every three months in a combat zone, despite unprecedented levels of continuous fighting and worsening risks of mental stress.

Instead, commanders are trying to give troops two to three days inside heavily fortified bases after about eight days in the field, said Brig. Gen. Joseph Anderson, chief aide to the ground forces commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno.

"We would never get the job done of securing (of Baghdad) if we went out for three months and came back" for one, Anderson said.

U.S. forces in Iraq spend more time in combat without a break than those who fought in Vietnam or World War II, according to Army psychologists who studied troops in Iraq.

U.S. commanders can't match the World War II policy, Odierno said in a news conference late last month.[emph added]

I imagine the resting troops are put in a special marked area so the resistance will know not to mortar them while they’re decompressing.

"Even in World War II and other times … we would pull forces off the line and bring them back on. Here we don't do that," Odierno said. "They (U.S. troops) are out there consistently every single day. So you have to be mentally and physically tough."

President Bush committed 28,000 more troops to Iraq this year as part of an escalation that started in February.

Army psychologists say continual combat may cause more mental health problems. Their research, conducted in Iraq last year, shows that 30% of troops experiencing high levels of combat demonstrate signs of anxiety, depression or acute stress.

Army Col. Carl Castro, a research psychologist who co-wrote the mental health study, said combat "is extremely, extremely stressful." That stress is aggravated, he says, by multiple tours of duty and deployments that have been extended from 12 months to 15.

I think this is the first time a major news source has referred to this thing correctly, as an escalation.

I’m waiting for GENs Odierno and Petraeus to mention that they’re in the sandbox for a lot more than 12 or 15 months. I sure hope the troops hear about that.